Short Story. Slumming.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 178, 15 March 1902, Page 1

Short Story. Slumming.

But one sad little story out of all the heaped up sorrow of the world. They sat together watching the sunset after the immemorial man*. ner of lovers. Over ail was the shadow of parting. They felt its pain; yet through the pain, and overcoming it, ran the glowing knowledge of how they had elapsed hands upon the bridge of life and were crossing it together. They were too happy to talk. After mutual revelation came this intense silence, the shimmering purples and golds and blues, the cosy mists and yellow lakes of sunset. The girl picked up her inseparable companion—a volume of poems—from the floor, but put it down again, for her lover eyed it jealously. She read therein constantly, carried it about with her, and the page whereat she lingered most was that agonising heartcry— Do you, that have nought other to lament, Do you, that have nought other to lament, Never, my love, repent Of how that July afternoon You went With sudden, untelligible phrase And frightened eye Upon your journey of so many days Without a single kiss or a good-bye? ‘ I sometimes think,’ Serena said, *we rely too much upon books instead of studying human documents." * We can’t read them to the end,* said Breene. ‘ln books, everything is cut and dried and finished before you begin to read. The people have gone through it all; you only read about it afterwards. Now, we’re beginning; we can’t see the end.’ ‘ Serena ?” cried a voice on the stairs, ‘ Serena, where are you ?* Breene glanced in the direction of the doorway. ‘ Now, for yon* father.’ ‘No lights!’ said the father, puffily entering the room, and bringing with him an odour of after-dinner port. I No lights, Serena ?” ‘ Come here, father,’ murmured Serena. ‘Mr Breene wants to say something to you.’ The merchant looked suspiciously at Breene- ‘ That’s why you left me to finish the port alone ? It’s much too good to leave for any other reason.’ ‘ Yes, it occurred to me that it wasn’t living to sit at a solitary table and drink life's cup alone.' The merchant looked surprised. ‘ Ob, well, I had a nap. Sleep and port go well together, with digestion waiting upon both.’ ‘ I want to marry Serena,’ said Breene, abruptly. Sunset was poetry; fathers-ia-law, willing or unwilling, were ptose. ‘ Hum!” said the merchant. ‘Huml Well, Serena. I don't think it a bad idea. Settled that Canada business Breene ?’ ‘No ; not yet,’ said Breeoe. 4 1 must start for Canada to-morrow. That is why I—l—ti -night.’ 1 Quite so.’ said Serena’s father. ‘ Certainly, my dear fellow. Serena took to good works lately. Stop her slumming; it interferes with her appetite.’ He' smoothed Serena's hair with one fat hand. “ You’re very like your mother, erena; she always saved bee turtle soup and gave it to the poor they didn't understand - it; turtle takes time to understand.” erena, with tact, waived the discussion as to turtle, she had not yet realised what parting meant In the middle of the night she woke up with a little cry. Her lover was going away. There was no room for any other fact in the universe. He was going away. Breene realised it too.' His business was imperative. He eMfli not even put it off for aday, marry Serena, and take her with him. He spent three days at Quebec and hurried back again. Then began the monotonous endurance of waiting. He spent half hie time in the engine room, praying to the monsters of steel and brass therein to bring him more quickly to Serena, and, when they had answered his prayer, rushed lo Liverpool, and reached London at seven. After he had brushed away the stains of travel Breene .walked but from bis hotel, feeling that fate went with him hand in band. ‘ Come,’ said Fate, impatiently. ‘ Oome with me to Serena!’ Breene walked quickly until ha reached the corner of Bryanstonsquare. The dim twilightt took upon itself a deeper cloak and dogged his footsteps, chill autumn mists struck coldly at his heart. Ho turned into Bryanstbn-square and crossed to the other side, not without misadventure, for a long, low waggon, drawn by a bony black horse, nearly ran him down. He seized the horse’s bit with an angry gesture. * Take care I* Two men in black sat upon the* front seat of tie waggon. Their rad faces glared out from ibe m s st;

there was an expression of sickening brutality on them —the look of men familiar with death and yet strange’s to its awful meaning.| In the waggon itself lay a long box 1 with a silver glistening plate upon the lid. The sudden stoppage of the waggon had shaken the black covering’ from a coffin. Breene’s anger loft him. “Be more careful, my good fellows. Dont distribute death as well as minister to it.” The driver gave a drunkon hiccough. “If you’d got to face, ’fected rooms, and touch ’fectod bodies, you wouldn’t mind whether you was run over or not. It’s quicker.” j “Hush-h-hh !” .said the other man. “ We’ro dealing with a! typhus case,” he added to Breene,j ‘ and it’s made my mate a bit nervous.' Breene threw these vampires some money, the driver whipped up the old horse, which shambled off in a jog-trot, and bo mechanically followed behind it. ‘ Death and life,’ he murmured, as he crossed the spuare in front of Serena’s home. ‘ Here am I coming to Serena, and there is that long box in which somebody' will be carried and lost to sight. Ugh !’ The waggon kept slowly on across the square, halted at No. 12 for a moment, then moved on to biO. Id. The driver descended from his seat, tied a nosebag round the nose of the ancient horse, and, with the assistance of his fellow, who had softly opened the door, let down the tailboard of the waggon, and began to haul at the coffin within, whilst an old woman came to the steps, a lighted candle in her hand. Breene, following behind, smiled with relief when tbie-waggon stopped at No. 12. The next moment he remained rooted to the pavement. Serena lived at No. 13. The sober man touched his hat. ‘Better not go in, sir. Servants all bolted; the father’s gone to an hotel.* ‘ The father !’ ‘ Yes, sir. The young lady was ill only a short time. Slummin’, sir’ Slummin. That’s what did it.’ Breene followed the two men as they carried the coffin up the wide staircase to a room on the second floor. Several times, in turning the. angles of the staircase, it struck roughly against the walls. They gained a staircase from which the carpet had been taken away. Arriving at the landing j the coffin-bearers put down their! burden and proceeded to tie disin-| [octant-saturated handkerchiefs over! their mouths and nostrils. '■ 1 Bettor go back said the rival one to L eene. ‘ It’s typhus.’ Breene opened the door and walked into the room where lay the body of Serena. A white cloth concealed her face. Breene could see the rigid outline of Serena’s form beneath the white sheet. A lock of brown hair strayed from beneath the cloth and lay over the pillow. Upon the little table beside her there were three or four bottles of medicine and her favourite book. Breene walked to the bed, took up the book," and thrust it into his breast. He must see Serena’s face again! but as he raised his hand to move away the cloth the woman and men drew him from the room. Breene made no attempt to re-enter and they all silently went down the staircase together. When they reached the street, Breene thrust money into the woman’s hand, and went away to : his solitary chambers in the Temple. Two days later he died also. Sentimental people said that be died of a broken heart, but the doctors shook their heads incredulously am], burned the volume of poems found on the dead man’s breast, for there was enough contagion In the book to decimate half London.—Wentworth Smeo in the Sunday Sun.